I Can Feel It
by Spicers Apple
Summary: Goes along with my HR video on youtube with the same name. NormanxEthan. 8- Shaun uncovers one of Jayden's first FBI case files and is surprised at how directly involved the man was in the events.
1. 0 Prologue Shaun

My Heavy Rain AMV on youtube is here: .com/watch?v=fCjEF4xzjzU

Angel

Amidst the darkness, underneath the rumbling of over-swollen clouds lay a small angelic figure who was slowly losing its struggle to survive. The sky was blackened with sorrow, crying infinite tears as they pounded down onto the concrete and into the rusted well, witnessing yet another pure victim get murdered by its own sadness. The innocent boy who was kept in a watery cage for 5 days sloshed around helplessly, trying in vain to grab up at the grate leading to his freedom. However, as these days on end of tortuous hypothermia and chronic fatigue drained him, and as the days slowly ticked by, he struggled less and less, instead trying to conserve what little energy he had left to merely stay awake and float above the rising water with the hope that he'd be rescued.

"Dad, I know you'll come save me…" he whispered, the sound of his voice rendered nearly inaudible and torn apart by the roar of the falling rain. He peered up through the slits in the grate with utterly tired eyes, the skin around them tinging pink with his prolonged exhaustion. Just as he found it hard to stay awake and was starting to succumb to the allure of letting the rain overtake him, to finally be at peace and fade away into eternal sleep, he heard a creaking of metal and an echoing slam, followed by the sound of frantically running footsteps.

Shaun Mars slowly opened his bleary eyes to see the angel who arrived to save him, the angel that stood above him to rescue him from pain and suffering. And that angel… -

-had pain and suffering of his own.


	2. Norman

I Listened to Heavy Rain OST- Redemption while writing this :(

Addiction

"I… I just need… to forget. That's all I want." Norman Jayden muttered to himself, having an internal conversation with the red-clad butler in his mind. He sat on his bed with his arms wrapped around his legs. While he was engaged in mentally sparring with himself, he grabbed his trembling wrist tight as a vice grip, trying to prevent himself from continuing; the tremoring hand held a vial full of Triptocaine and twitched convulsively as he gazed at it, feeling as if it was saying to him 'you need this'. "But sir, you've already taken two doses in the last ten minutes… surely this cannot be good for you-"

Jayden gripped the vial tighter, scowling in anger at it and at the man he perceived in his head._ He needed this._

"I don't care! I just need to get through this… Just one more and I'll be fine." The butler gaped in shock, wide-eyed and replied hastily, worried that Norman would not listen to him in time. He outstretched his hand and interjected, "No, I advise against that, sir! If you take any more, I'm afraid you may—"

He NEEDED this.

Norman stared heatedly at the last remaining vial of Tripto in his junkie hand, then to the two empty vials scattered on the bed. He felt his nose bleeding out of one nostril, eyes bloodshot and painful; hell, his whole body hurt. Every organ, every bone, every muscle… not to mention his mind. Norman would rather destroy his aspiring FBI brain than to live with the memory of someone he—

_ No_.

It was harder and harder to tell himself that, harder than anything else in the world to say no to cleansing his mind of the pain, much less dragging a splintered rake through it with Tripto.

And it was also hard to say "No, it's not my fault", "No, I didn't cause this", "No, I didn't let him die", but Norman believed the opposite anyway, running away like a little chicken shit and using drugs to destroy his brain so he wouldn't have to deal with it. He almost wanted those memories to just never have existed in the first place- it would be much less painful that way.

But Jayden didn't want this. At one time he _didn't_ need it. But this time, this _one_ case had done him in. He allowed himself to get too close to the victims, and one of them died.

It wasn't Shaun.

Jayden couldn't bear to stare longingly at the vial of the tantalizingly blue "forget-powder" anymore, and with an aggravated sigh he buried his head in his knees.

_Did he really need this…?_

Sometimes Jayden didn't even know the answer, himself.


	3. Realization

.

Added Reality Interface

He stared at his hands, down at his palms and slowly turned them over, back and forth in the air. He's been doing this for the past 15 minutes while he contemplated, the look of perplexed concentration on his face never ceasing for an instant. He felt as if… reality wasn't… _real_. That these hands weren't really his.

And it scared him.

He stared down into his mug of coffee, watching the surface of the creamy-brown drink slowly swirl and start to ripple the more he stared at it. But he couldn't look away, not after what he was seeing in it.

He stopped using ARI for the past 3 days, yet everywhere he went in his house he saw..._things_. After-images. Things he couldn't bear to relive. And this latest abhorrence didn't irk him any more than the others. At least at first.

The coffee wasn't _really_ moving, as nothing had disturbed the cup in an hour or so, and the room was dead-silent, no commotion going on- but Jayden insisted to himself that it was. There was no other explanation for it, one that he'd accept, anyway. He was also aware he was deluding himself with the logical side of his mind. He almost smiled at the thought. At least there was a small part of him somewhere that wasn't completely bonkers.

"Who… am I?" He crooned to the rippling drink, putting his hands gently on the desk in front of him and leaning forward to look tersely into the mug. He frowned, morosed at the sight of the ripples rearranging his reflection into something else. _Someone_ else. He gripped the table tightly, shut his eyes quickly and felt like he wanted to scream.

"Why does everything in this house want to FUCK with me?" he managed to spout in a self-mocking, blithering tone, his voice cracking with a lilt. He attempted to keep himself composed, but his body for the moment was not his own. His shoulders quivered against his every will to not do so, and his stomach muscles clenched tight, sending that foreign, unwanted feeling up his spine...

He was going to-

"Damn it…" He hissed while he exhaled, then held his breath to wait for the feeling to pass. He couldn't let himself do it. He couldn't let his real feelings up to the surface. Not now. It would destroy him.

Eventually he opened his eyes and his gaze snapped instantly back to the reflection in the cup. He went wide-eyed as he witnessed the one thing he didn't want to. His heart skipped several beats and he gasped, bloody tears running down the corners of his eyes and down his face.

"It can't be…!" he sobbed, unable to contain himself any longer. He buried his face in his arms, allowing his body to force him to cry. He didn't object.

"It… It can't be you!" Jayden screamed into his suit sleeves, then lifted his head, blood dripping from his eyes and cheeks and splattering on the desk. He paid no mind that his expensive suit was getting stained and ruined. He moved his head forward again, gritting his teeth together, mouth quivering, floodgates draining blood all over his face, and took another glance in the hope he wouldn't still see him.

He still saw 'him' in the coffee cup.

Jayden roared in anger and jumped up out of his chair, sending it falling backward with a crash. He slammed a fist down on the table and shoved all the folders off the desk, sending papers flying everywhere.

Then, he felt dizzy. Started seeing double, nearly falling over, staggering. But now he knew. He now knew the full extent of what he was doing to himself, and yet… that realization still didn't make him care.

About anything.

He noticed that damned vial of Triptocaine roll out of one of the folders on the floor, where he hid it the night before. Well, technically, it was only a few hours after he had taken the other two; he wanted to make himself believe it was a long time since he last used, so it would give him an excuse to feed his addiction again without feeling guilty. But anyone who thinks a day is a long time for another round is probably beyond the state of repair.

And boy, Norman Jayden was so broken he didn't know what to do with himself.

His nose bled again, the same nostril as before. "I really should start using the other one soon, I'm sick of bleeding all over the place. It's getting kinda... dried out, too, and it hurts," he said sarcastically, smiling ruthlessly at his irony. His vision blurred and he fell to his knees. He scrambled for the drug. Cupped it softly into his hands as if it was so fragile it might break. Smiled shakily again to himself. He would finally find a release.

He frowned at his own thought.

"Disgusting."

He leaned his hand against the side of the desk to prop himself up, then walked along the wall, leaning his hand on the wall for support on the way to the bathroom.

Oh, that's right. _You're_ what's wrong with me.

Thanks.


	4. Runaway

.

Altruist

Shaun waited on Norman Jayden's front doorstep, fidgeting around anxiously. He held his backpack loosely in one hand, waiting for him to open the door. This was the only time Norman _didn't_ run hurriedly to the door and let him in after Shaun followed the special "ritual".

Shaun "hmm"'d to himself, wondering if the reason he didn't open the door was because it was currently… 3 AM. Shaun looked around him outside, wondering if someone was watching him, and then turned back to the door to do the ritual again. _Ring the doorbell twice, check… knock three times, OK…_

Nothing.

Shaun sighed. "I really need to talk to you right now, too... Man, this sucks." Suddenly he remembered something Jayden had given to him in an unmarked white envelope that also contained his thirteenth birthday money a few months ago. "Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Sorry," He whispered softly, already remorseful, and sat his bag on the ground next to him on the doorstep, unzipping the biggest pocket and taking out a black binder. He opened it and immediately flipped to the last divider and dug out a note attached to a key from the back pouch. Quietly he opened the note and noticed a hole in the corner where a ribbon looped through and attached to the key.

"I can't believe I forgot about this…" Shaun closed his eyes and smiled. "But you did say to 'not open it until I needed it', which actually makes sense now." He laughed softly as he remembered his mother staring at this envelope when Jayden gave it to him at the party, looking suspiciously at it in her own motherly way. But as soon as Shaun took out the money and yelled, surprised and excited, hugging the agent tightly and showering him with a million "Thank you!"s, all her suspicions melted away and she turned back to cut the rest of the cake and lay out the plates on the table near the garden in the back yard.

_Shaun was grinning, his face pressed into Jayden's side. "Is she still watching?" His voice came out all muffled and excited. Jayden smiled mildly, not attracting attention from the other party guests, and touched his fingers gently to a familiar place on the back of Shaun's neck without making a sound. Shaun instantly recognized what it meant._

"_It's safe,"_ He mouthed silently on the doorstep, trying to remember exactly how Jayden's voice murmured it two years ago when they first started formulating their secret code. There was only so many times Grace would allow Shaun to spend time with Norman, and every time he was at Shaun's house, or at his birthday parties, he was always under her careful, watchful eye and constant scrutiny, her wondering why he would spend so much time with people involved in past cases instead of working on new ones. She wanted Shaun to start spending less time with him, and less frequently. It was her opinion that her son needed to be weaned off of _anything_ that reminded him of the past and eventually cut all ties with it completely. They even moved into a new house. With _Steve_. Shaun cringed. _Steve_. He made a lot of money, for being a professional marketing weasel and bullshitter. Shaun hated people who didn't have honest hard-working jobs, like his father had, being an architect, or even the FBI…

Shaun attentively untied the red ribbon from the paper, not wanting to rip through the hole in it, and put the key in the door and turned it, unlocking the door. He took the key back out and tied the loose ends of the ribbon to a belt loop near his pants pocket and let the key dangle from it. He opened the door and grabbed his bag, shutting the door softly behind him. Once inside he kicked off his shoes, locked the door and dropped the bag on the couch while reading the note. All that was on it was an address, written in their code.

And detailed instructions on how to get there from his house.

Discreetly.

"Well, looks like this one wasn't as hard to find as the others, Mr. Jayden. You're losing your touch."

If only Shaun knew how close to the truth he was.


	5. Remembrance

.

Allude

Shaun looked around the house, wondering why this one had to look so different from the others. Every year on Shaun's birthday Jayden would give him a different key, and a different note with a different colored ribbon, different directions on how to get there...

Every year he seemed to move farther away, and this time it was really a long haul from the train station. But at least this time he didn't have to go practically in circles trying to find that elusive house surrounded by trees and secluded from the rest of the world... Shaun kind of wished he moved to one of those types of houses again; this one seemed… too _homey_. The others were more exotic, luxurious, and expensive.

Shaun folded the note back along its original crease and put it in his pocket. He sauntered sleepily over to the kitchen while he stretched out his arms, yawning. It was a long train ride here, and on top of that he had to walk here in the dark. Which he didn't mind, of course, since he had dealt with far much worse in the past.

"Hey, I got into another fight with Mom and her… _boyfriend_. Sorry for arriving so late this time!" he called, hoping he wasn't too loud, but loud enough that Jayden would hear in his bedroom. At least he _hoped_ the man slept at this hour. Come to think of it, he had never snuck back into Jayden's room after they went to sleep just to see if he ever did, in fact, _sleep_.

"I guess this time I'll find out for sure if he really does," Shaun said wonderingly while he flipped on the light switch in the kitchen, got a glass out of the cupboard and sat it on the dining table, then turned around to open the fridge and find something to drink. He saw a carton of orange juice and grabbed it, shutting the refrigerator door afterward. He started to shake the carton while sitting down at the table.

In the back of his mind, he wondered why this would be. Why Jayden decided to suddenly move into an ordinary neighborhood, surrounded by ordinary houses, surrounded by ordinary people. It was like he suddenly didn't want to stand out. Either that, or he was losing confidence in himself. Shaun stopped shaking the carton.

_Or losing money._

"Shit…" He muttered under his breath as he poured the orange juice into his glass, the kind with pulp. Shaun's favorite. He half-smiled- Jayden always seemed to keep some on hand for him. He actually_ cared._

_Like a father._

Shaun glanced away from the table, looking instead out of the kitchen and into the back yard.

_He's like you…_

_Dad._

_"It will be... on the other side of that tree." Jayden said out loud, deciphering the scrambled numbers and letters on the paper. He walked down the steps of the back porch and went to a tree that was by itself near the corner of the yard. He walked around it, and noticed something red high up in a branch. He tugged at it, and something swung down with a card attached to it. It was a bottle._

_"No way. You've gotta be kidding me." He untied the red ribbon from the tree branch, held the small bottle in his hand and read the card. _

_'Please throw it away. I don't want you to suffer anymore.'_

_Jayden leaned his back into the tree, speechless. Shaun somehow found all his hidden stashes of Triptocaine around the house and put it into one bottle. How did he know? _

_Jayden briskly walked back into the house, agitated and distressed, and sat at the table next to Shaun, who was waiting for him to return._

_"I... how..." Jayden started, barely able to speak or form coherent thoughts. Shaun rested his hands together on the table, not immediately replying, and not looking at him either. He waited a few seconds to answer his unasked question with bullet-charged insight._

_"You miss him, don't you."_

_Jayden froze. He slowly looked from the bottle when he put it on the table upon entering the kitchen to this child, this child that was way smarter than he should have been. Jayden noticed that Shaun was staring at him from the corner of his eyes this whole time. Shaun's eyes pierced into his, and was somehow able to read his thoughts._

_"I...I do. ...A lot."_ _Jayden's eyes drooped, overcome with sorrow and shame. He turned his head back to face the table and looked down at the bottle._

_"He… was the greatest father in the world, Shaun. You should have seen how much he cared about you. I witnessed it with my own eyes; I've NEVER met someone who had that level of determination before. I can only imagine the things he went through to save you."_

_Shaun was quiet for a moment, letting all of this new info to him sink in. Slowly, he reached out a hand and touched Jayden's arm, meaning 'I know'. "Mr. Jayden?"_

_"Yeah?" He looked at Shaun, Shaun's face filled with compassion and understanding._

_"You loved him, didn't you?"_

Suddenly Shaun jolted awake, sitting upright in his chair. This was the same chair he sat in that day, and even the same table. He looked from the table to the view outside again, amazed at the memory provoked from simply sitting here. He quickly stood up; it was as if this house was playing with his mind, making him relive things-

"I guess this house really has more in common with the other houses than I thought," he said, and quickly drank his orange juice and left the kitchen with the light still on. He hoped it would give him enough energy to do what he was about to do.

_That memory was from a whole year ago._

_He hoped Jayden had stopped using by now._


	6. Overdose

.

Atmosphere

Shaun went back to the living room at the front of the house and looked around for where the other rooms in the house were. He saw a hallway in the dark and crept down it slowly, trying to not make much noise. He had a feeling, a very creepy feeling flowing into his body and his heart started beating faster the more he moved down it. He gently felt along the wall, trying not to step too anxiously, and attempted to be careful enough to not bump into anything that might be in the way.

'_Of course there wouldn't be anything in the way. Jayden ALWAYS has his house tidy and spotless. There would be nothing to bump into,' _Shaun thought with humor. Then right on cue his toes knocked into something and he stopped, lifting his foot in the air in surprised recoil. He took a step backward and kneeled down, trying to feel for whatever it was on the ground with his hands. He felt it, picked it up and squinted at it in the dark, making out the familiar shape of the frame.

'_It's ARI,'_ he thought while he stood up again. He knew what ARI was. Jayden even showed it to him a couple times, letting him try it out. But one thing Jayden didn't know was how Shaun was able to find his expertly-hidden Triptocaine in the last house...

'_It's because of this.' _Shaun put the glasses on, and swiftly put his hands up to his mouth to stop himself from gasping loudly. "Woah…"

Usually he needed the glove to see what he currently saw in the hallway, so it certainly surprised him at what he _did_ see. It was as if the glove was already being worn and activated over and over at a fairly rapid pace, sending yellow scan lines through the hallway and lighting up certain objects in blue again and again.

'_Is this thing broken?' _Shaun walked a little bit further down the hall, and bent down to look at one of the nearest blue objects. He couldn't analyze exactly what it was since he didn't have the glove, but he could still make a guess based on what the shape and outline looked like.

'_No, this can't be broken. He wouldn't break something so precious to him. Maybe I can figure out what's going on here, if I investigate this.' _The first object looked like a splotch on the carpet, yet not entirely consistent, uniform. This wasn't blood, or at least blood from a gaping wound. It kind of looked…_powdery_. Shaun narrowed his eyes, then moved on.

He crept down the hall a ways and stopped again, noticing an uneven trail leading from the first object he examined to here where the trail split off in two directions, one trail leading into the room next to him and the other leading farther down the hall and into a different room. These two trails had a different object mixed in, little drops peppered around in spots that were more consistent than the powder.

'_Blood.' _Shaun started to worry. _'What the heck was he doing?' _He tiptoed into the nearest room and observed the trail in here for a moment. He was in Jayden's bedroom. Strangely enough the yellow scan line's boundary ended halfway through the room, not going farther than the bed or even to the closet and wardrobe on the other side.

'_The glove must be in the room down the hall.' _Shaun looked at Jayden's bed. It hasn't been disturbed, and was perfectly made. Shaun followed the trail to the desk and almost tripped over the knocked over chair on the floor. He saw a small pool of blood on the desk, and diluted blood inside the coffee mug, and then splattered spots of blood that led into the trail going out to the hallway. Shaun carefully went around the chair, not moving it or making noise, and looked around the other side of the desk and noticed with surprise that there was also blood here on the floor. Next to a bunch of knocked over folders and papers. He flipped open one of the folders that was on the top of the stack and saw the front page had pictures of Ethan from when he was arrested, and a police report underneath detailing their suspicion that he was the Origami Killer. Shaun furrowed his brows. He never heard about that. He flipped to the next page, and it was more pictures of Ethan, this time in what looked to be an interrogation room. The pictures were frame-by-frame shots of him with his face in different expressions while Jayden and Carter Blake asked him questions about his relation to the Origami Killer. Each shot had hand-written dialogue underneath it in pen that detailed what exactly they were saying in each picture.

_'The only way to find him, is to let me out of here. I'm the only person who can save him.'_

_'That's just crazy talk, Ethan! That doesn't make any sense! How can I believe ANYTHING you say?'_

_'I love my son. I love... my son. If you keep me here, Shaun is going to die.'_

Shaun almost teared up._ 'Dad...' _He closed the folder and stood up again, going back into the hallway. He went to where the last trail stopped, in front of the bathroom.

Shaun opened the door and every part of him quailed at what he witnessed. Norman was sitting on the toilet, that mysterious blue ARI-object color painted all over him, and the bathroom floor and wall tiles as well. He was unresponsive to Shaun's entering and apparently didn't notice at all. The only parts of his body that moved were his hands, the backs of them resting on his legs while his fingertips twitched incessantly, hands clenched tightly into fists with his nails digging deep into his palms. His nails were leaving imprints, or maybe even at this point drawing blood. His right hand wore that unmistakable black ARI glove. Norman's eyes were entirely blue in ARI's vision, and most of his face and suit were too. He looked like a ghost in the darkness, pure white but covered head to toe in spilled human substance. He still wore his shoes, and even those were subject to the color change in the blue light. Shaun could tell from how big the blue spots were for his eyes that his eyes were wide open. Every time his fingers twitched and dug into his palms the scan lines started over again, highlighting his body from scratch every other second. Shaun saw that every time it started over he had a split second to look at his eyes in the darkness. They were massively dilated, and staring straight ahead.

"Jayden! You're having a seizure! Oh my god!" Shaun hurriedly flipped on the light switch and took off ARI, almost throwing them off his face and onto the bathroom counter. Jayden's pupils shrank slightly in reaction to the sudden brightness. His mouth was ajar, and his head was twitching slightly side to side.

"Jayden! Jayden!" Shaun ran to him and grabbed his arms, trying to pull him off the toilet, but he wouldn't budge. Adrenaline crashed through Shaun's veins, he had never been so scared for someone in his life. "Please wake up! Please hear me! Snap out of it!" Tears welled up and fell down Shaun's face. "I can't lose anyone close to me ever again! Jayden, _please_!" Shaun tapped Jayden's clenching fists over and over again with his palms, frantically trying to remind him of the code.

_Please. Please. _

_Please Please Please Please Please Please Please_

"NORMAN!" Shaun screamed, "Norman, PLEASE DON'T DIE! I BEG YOU, WAKE UP!" Shaun shook Jayden's shoulders in desperation. "I need you, Norman! Don't die! Don't leave me here all alone! I can't go back home anymore! Please, wake up!"

Norman moaned weakly, the sound caught in his throat. His hands slowly unclenched and started twitching less erratically. Shaun saw a clear tube in Jayden's gloveless hand.

"God dammit!" Shaun pried the empty bottle of Tripto out of Norman's hand, sliding it out forcefully and threw it at the floor. Norman's body started slumping forward, eyes rolling in the back of his head, another low moan barely reaching its ability to be voiced.

_'No… he's losing consciousness!' _Shaun caught Norman when he doubled over and turned around while holding him, getting him off the toilet and momentarily holding him against the wall so Norman's body would stay put while Shaun moved his hands to a different position so he could relocate him easier. Shaun turned around and pressed his back into Norman's chest to keep him from falling down, and lifted his hands behind him to grab Norman's arms and pull some of his weight onto his back, like a passed-out, half piggy-back. Shaun slouched forward and hobbled them over to the door, Norman's shoes dragging on the tile behind them. It took a while to get them to Jayden's bedroom even though it wasn't that far away because Shaun wasn't used to carrying a grown man's figuratively dead weight around with no help.

Finally, they got to Jayden's bed and Shaun leaned to the right, letting Norman roll off his back and onto the bed. Shaun picked up Norman's legs and made sure his whole body was on the mattress before pulling the string on the table lamp next to him, then running around to the other side of the queen-sized bed to turn on the other table lamp. Shaun sat on the unoccupied side while he watched Norman, worried out of his mind. Norman's eyes were closed, and he barely seemed to breathe. Shaun laid down on his stomach next to him and put his hand on the side of Norman's face, willing him to wake up with his distraught stare and mental pleading. After a few minutes with no response, Shaun closed his eyes, weeping, and drooped his forehead onto Norman's cheek.

"Why… why couldn't you have waited until I was here, I could have helped you stop yourself from doing this," Shaun cried into Norman's ear. "You would have been a much better Dad than that moron Steve," he sobbed shakily.

Shaun was utterly heartbroken. Jayden was his last resort, he had no one else to turn to or rely on. His mom practically went insane after Ethan's death, even though they were divorced, and was so scared that Shaun would be the next one in the family to perish she wanted to forcefully change everything that was in Shaun's life to prevent it from happening, whether he was allowed to have a say in it or not. But with every fiber of his being, Shaun did not want to cut off his ties with Jayden.

Steve was always abusive toward him and calling him things like "Little shit", and "Troublemaker" when his mom was not in the house, leading his mom to not believe anything Shaun said that was bad about him. She always attributed it to Shaun wanting to 'break up the new family', and Shaun would always scream back 'we don't have a family anymore!'. Then the next day Shaun would take the bus to school, like normal, but then walk down the street to the bus station, and disappear entirely for a few days.

And every one of those times he left he went to stay with Jayden. And all those times Jayden never questioned him, just let him in the house and allowed Shaun to leave again whenever he felt good and ready.

"Jayden, Please be my father. I love you. … I can't live without you, I need you to stay in my life. You can teach me all that cool FBI stuff again, like we used to do…! Please... Norman, don't… _die_…" Shaun hiccupped, fresh tears dropping on Norman's cheek, washing away the blood that was caked on it. He sobbed for what felt like eternity, and then finally it happened.

"…_'S...cared'_?"

Norman barely opened his eyes and croaked out the single word. He tried to look at Shaun's hand on his face, most of his vision obscured by his eyelashes and caked blood that sealed around his eyelids.

"Oh my god! Jayden, you're alive…!" Shaun screamed in elated surprise, putting the side of his head on Jayden's chest and hugging his neck tightly as if it was the end of the world. Jayden waited a few seconds to regain his strength, then carefully lifted a hand and rested it on Shaun's head.

"Shaun, I'm... sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I won't hold it against you if you never forgive me…" he said weakly, staring groggily at the ceiling.

.

_Every time Shaun left for a few days, Steve got more and more suspicious. Shaun didn't know that this latest time he ran away, Steve was secretly tailing him in his car. He followed Shaun to Jayden's house. Memorized the address, and how to get there. He was going to come back the next night after some preparation. He was finally going to end all this bullshit, once and for all._


	7. Ocular

.

Appearance

"Of course I forgive you, you idiot!"

Shaun and Jayden looked at each other for the longest moment, one of them remorseful and the other happily exasperated.

Jayden attempted to sit up and was having difficulties, so Shaun put an arm around his back and helped to prop him up. Jayden looked thoughtful for a second, then made up his mind; he rotated a bit and extended his arms toward Shaun, gently wrapping him into a hug. Shaun leaned forward and let Jayden press him close to him, feeling his previous tension and anxiety fade away.

"Jayden, I'm just happy you're still alive."

They stay silent for a moment, both not needing to say much, or feeling like they had to. Shaun smiled and wrapped his arms around Jayden to hug him tighter. He never wanted to let go. He never wanted him to be in danger again. He wanted Jayden to live on to be his guardian angel another day, an angel that would rescue him when the situation called. He just wanted to live with him forever, to laugh together, have fun, travel with him wherever he went on FBI missions… _if he still went on any_-

Shaun moved that thought to the back of his mind. He would ask about that later, but instead he wanted to focus on _this_ moment, while it lasted. Jayden lifted one of his arms and cradled Shaun's head against his chest. He gently stroked his hair and gazed down at him. Jayden was happy that Shaun was the first thing he saw when he woke up. Maybe having Shaun stay with him for a few extra days will free him from this abyssal darkness that had overtaken his heart.

'_Shaun, you're a little angel. You didn't deserve any of this that has happened to you_,' he thought while he smiled down at him. Oddly enough, Shaun had this exact same train of thought.

'_Jayden, you're my big angel. You didn't deserve what has happened to you, and I want to help you through it._'

Shaun perked up, a mischievous grin on his face.

"I came up with a new one." Jayden took his hand off Shaun's head.

"What is it?"

Shaun touched Jayden's face and Jayden said out loud, "_'Scared'_," and then Shaun punched Jayden in the leg, softly. "Um, now what does that one mean…?" Jayden inquired playfully.

"_'Idiot'_."

Jayden started laughing. Shaun elaborated on this, really wanting to get the excuse to punch him again. He poked himself in the chest, then touched Jayden's face, then poked Jayden in the chest, then punched his leg again.

"_'I' [Was] 'Scared' 'You' 'Idiot'_"

Jayden laughed a little longer, then found the courage to say what he wanted to say for a while. Previously, he was nervous about it, but Shaun always made the situation better. Always. This boy was magic. Jayden lowered his head, level next to Shaun's, and said quietly as if there were other people in the room, "I saw him again…"

Shaun looked up at Jayden with wide, big eyes. "You did?" Jayden nodded, slightly consternated. "Yeah. I even saw him after being clean for three days this time. That's why…" Jayden glanced out of the corner of his eyes at the desk, "that's why I just lost it. I wasn't really intending to overdose, honestly." He momentarily looked down at Shaun again, who was listening intently.

"But I just had to talk to him again! For some reason, previously I could only talk to him and see him when I used ARI, but recently it's been like he's messing with me, teasing me to do it again. I just couldn't take it anymore-"

Shaun blinked. '_That explains those weird emotions I felt when I practiced with ARI all those times…! Even when I just used them today!_' Shaun moved his head away from Jayden's chest and looked at him, surprised that he realized and understood what Jayden was talking about. "I felt it! These little… _fragments_! I… I saw _Dad_ when I used ARI!"

Now, it was Jayden's turn to look surprised, but Shaun excitedly continued on, on the brink of discovering something. "Your memories of him must have somehow been _uploaded_ into ARI! That's how he can talk to you!"

Jayden gasped, neural connections suddenly set on fire. He zoned out, staring into nothingness as this revelation hit his soul like a freight train. '_All this time, I thought I was just-'_

"…Shaun?"

"Yes?"

Jayden paused before continuing, still thinking about a million things at once, and all of their possibilities. "Can you… wear ARI again and open file A426-B, and tell me what you see?"

"Of course! I'll go get it and come right back!" Shaun got off the bed and left the room hurriedly. Jayden leaned his head back against the headboard of the bed, exhaling a long, soundless sigh. He had a lot to think about, mull over. He closed his eyes, trying to relax a bit while he waited. Shaun came back in the room and sat on the bed, crossing his legs to make a butterfly. Jayden pulled off his glove and gave it to Shaun; he slipped it on and looked at the glasses for a second.

"Well, here goes…" He put them on. They were still in Investigative Mode. "ARI, Evidence Mode." Slowly the transparent environment Jayden last used became more opaque, finally transforming the room into rustling leaves and beautiful trees. The bed served as the "desk". Shaun reached out in a direction to his side and pulled out a filing cabinet drawer. He saw all the orange holographic folders inside. "ARI, sort alphabetically with initial letter 'A' as reference point." The folders lifted up out of the cabinet drawer and neatly rearranged themselves, floating back down into the drawer afterward.

"Or, you could have said 'open most recently-accessed file'." Jayden reminded with a good-natured smirk, eyes still closed.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't worry, it _has_ been a while since we went over all of it. You still know your way around it though, which is good."

Shaun smiled at the compliment. "I want to be an FBI Investigator, like you. I want to be your partner."

Jayden cracked open an eye. "Alright, then I'll keep teaching you so you can quickly pass your ARI proficiency test at the ripe age of 13, and come on dangerous missions with me."

Shaun stopped searching through folders and had a playful, slightly annoyed tone when he looked back at Jayden. "Hey, I'm serious. I'm not kidding." Jayden shut his eye, lifted his eyebrows and grinned again, putting his hands behind his head and against the headrest.

"I wasn't kidding, either."

.

Shaun was suddenly confused. He was scanning through the files sorted by 'A' with his eyes, then found somewhat what he was looking for: A426-A, A426-C, and A426-F. Shaun knew that the letters with a dash before it meant they were different files related to the A426 case, but 3 files were missing out of the group. He looked closer into the filing cabinet; the slots for where 2 of the missing files fit into the indentations in the bottom of the cabinet shelf drawer were glowing red instead of being solid black. The other indentation was flashing a bright red, then black repeatedly. Shaun put his ARI glove-covered index finger and thumb together above the flashing indentation point and felt a very thin file that was invisible to him before. The orange file rippled into view, more transparent and a slighter whitish hue than the others. Giant red letters flashed on and off across the file.

'_CORRUPTED_'.

Shaun tried to pull it out of the drawer, but his hand just passed though. The file rippled back into nothingness, indentation still flashing red. Shaun closed the cabinet and took off ARI, sitting it in his lap. He turned to look concernedly at Jayden.

"…The file's not here. It's gone. I hope… it wasn't important."


	8. Omen

Accessed

.

"What? You're serious?" Jayden shouted, startled and sat upright in the bed. He rubbed his eyes furiously, all of a sudden annoyed at the feeling of his eyes not being able to open all the way from the dried blood around them. He started to reach for ARI with crusted blood on the back of his hand, but changed his mind and swung his legs off the bed instead, getting up in a huff. Jayden felt a rage build up in him, and he simultaneously was very, very confused. His back was turned to Shaun.

Shaun saw Jayden's hands clench tight at his sides, vibrating in anger. "I'm going to take a shower," he said strongly and went to the open doorway before Shaun could reply. Shaun followed him to the hall and stopped, peeking around the bedroom door, trying not to invoke Jayden's wrath by being _too_ nosy.

"Do you need a change of clothes? I can get them for you while I wait." Jayden stopped before going into the bathroom, thinking about it, then wordlessly got a towel out of the cabinet in the wall next to the door and disappeared inside the bathroom. He popped his head out, Shaun being able to see half his face, and replied, his voice softer this time.

"No, but thank you Shaun. I'll be fine- I'll just head back there and change afterward." Shaun nodded. "OK," he said simply, not wanting to hold him up any longer. Jayden disappeared behind the door again and shut it. He touched a fingertip to his face and looked at it, a bloodless tear's residue on it. "At least this time it wasn't drug-induced," he chastised himself softly behind the privacy of the bathroom door.

.

Shaun flipped on the light switch in the hall and walked into the living room, looking at the clock on the wall. '_4:30 AM_.' Shaun sighed. He wasn't going to get any sleep tonight. He walked into the kitchen and set up the coffee maker, then turned it on. While that was going, he jumped up and sat on the countertop, rubbing his temples while his brain worked. _'He was… so angry. Angry that he lost the files. I've never seen him so mad, like he was about to snap and trying hard not to.'_

He kicked out his feet, swinging them back and forth idly without hitting the counter. _'Is that corrupted file the key to understanding what he's going through? And what's with the other two files?'_ He put his index knuckle against his lips, pondering.

The coffee was ready now. He jumped off the counter and got out two mugs from the cabinet, putting one on the counter near the coffee maker and filling the other for himself. "I'll pour him some when he gets out of the shower, so it will still be warm."

.

Jayden sighed, exasperated, his hands running down his face. He really went off the deep end… with everything. He surveyed the bathroom with a knot of despair tightening in his stomach. "How… how did I let this happen?" He stripped off his dirtied clothes and dropped them in a heap on the counter, not wanting to look at them anymore. He almost thought to not even take a shower, and just clean up this horrid mess with the towel he brought in instead. But he decided against cleaning the floor and walls, at least for now. He needed the reminder, the painful truth laughing at him to make sure he wouldn't attempt to do something like this again.

"_You know you almost offed yourself, right? **Idiot**._"

Jayden flicked his eyes up at his reflection in the mirror. This other voice that spoke to him was his own, though he never remembered opening his mouth. This voice was loud, mocking, echoing off the walls menacingly. Jayden's ears rang.

"_You knew you had to be more careful, **idiot**._"

"_Why'd you do it_?"

Jayden heard two voices now, one lighter in tone and quiet, the other now becoming gravely, cruel and dark. Jayden squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands, wincing in pain. Every time the gravely voice said "Idiot", it repeated in his ears a million times, getting louder and louder each time. And each time, that voice was getting more and more distorted, turning into what seemed to be someone else's. But that small, other, _quiet_ voice was barely noticeable. Jayden tried to focus only on that one, ignoring his pounding eardrums giving him a splitting headache. That soft voice was not his, either. What, or who, was it?

"_Jayden, why did you do this? I told you to stop._"

_"Yeah, NORMAN. Like he cares. Nobody cares about your fancy little FBI ass. ...Can't say I'll miss ya' though when you're gone."_

Jayden's eyes flew open and he stumbled into the shower, pressing his forehead and hands against the cool tiles of the wall. Great. Just what he needed- Blake and Shaun in his mind, equally competing to nurture his insanity.

"Blake, get the hell out of my head."

_"No, twinkletoes, that's not how it works. I'm stuck in this loony head of yours for a reason. Haven't figured it out yet? **Get a clue**."_

Jayden groaned in annoyance and turned the shower on, still not moving his head from where it rested. He looked down at the drain, watching blood running down it, mixing with the water.

"Shut uuuuup," Jayden raised his voice, highly strained and irritated, trying to sound exasperated but not quite having the energy for it.

_"Why should I, Norman? You're the one who's delusional and can't face the facts about what happened." _

The drain started to turn clear, most of the blood washing away. "It's your damn fault. If it wasn't for you, he wouldn't be dead." Suddenly, Blake's voice went silent. Jayden took this as a small victory and raised his head, letting the water flow over his face. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. He had such a rough time these past few days; he really needed to unwind, and this brief moment was enough to make him feel at some sort of peace.

_"What happened? What is he talking about?"_

Some minutes passed before Jayden suddenly broke down, knowing that the soft voice in his head was still there waiting for him to reply. His hallucinations never went away that easily. He had to feed them to make them satisfied enough to leave him alone, at least for a while until the next time his mental state warranted another horrific psychotic episode.

"Shaun, I never told you what really happened," Jayden whispered emotionally, eyelids fluttering to fight back tears, eyebrows knitting close together.

After moments of silence from the imaginary Shaun, Jayden hung his head low in shame, water splaying down his neck and running down his nose.

"Ethan wasn't killed by the Origami Killer!" he half-cried, choking on his words. He wanted revenge for it, deep in his heart, but he just couldn't deal with what happened, deal with the _reality_, and because of that he was haunted by constant reminders and hallucinations to punish him for it.

"...Blake did it. And I'll never be the same because of it."

.

Shaun smiled while he put a few scoops of sugar and some cream into his steaming mug, stirring it with a spoon. He thought back to all the previous times he wound up at Jayden's doorstep after running away from home.

"You were always there for me, and helped me out when I needed it. True, this time it's the same as all the others, but I know that I'm safe when I'm with you, so now it's my turn to help _you_ out as much as I can." Shaun looked down into the mug, feeling the steam warm his face. The warmth calmed him, reminded him of when Jayden hugged him on the bed earlier. He picked up the mug and turned around, leaning his back against the counter and started to drink. _'It really felt just like Dad hugging me, the way he used to. Sometimes I can't help imagining-'_

Shaun finished the cup and rinsed it out, sitting it on the counter again afterward. "-that you ARE my dad. That way I won't be as sad when I think about how long you've been gone."

He made his way back into the hallway and grabbed two towels from the cabinet, went back into the kitchen and ran one of them under the sink faucet to get it wet. He wrung out the excess water, then took the towels with him to Jayden's bedroom. He went to work, scrubbing off the desk, then wiped it off with the dry towel after. He picked up the mug of bloody coffee, went back to the kitchen and washed it in the sink. He wanted the house to be in a better state before Jayden got out of the shower; he wanted to eliminate anything in sight that would stress Jayden out or reminded him of what had just happened. But, now that some of the more _noticable_ messes were out of the way, Shaun wanted to investigate a little further into this whole "missing files" problem. Perhaps if he could figure this out, as well as cleaning up Jayden's messes, he would prove himself to be a capable partner to the man. Not that he needed to prove anything, though.

For they both knew that he already was.

.

Shaun wore ARI again, attempting to figure out exactly what happened the past few hours- and not just during the time Shaun was already here. He _had_ to know what led Jayden into the state he found him in the bathroom. There must be some clues around here, either in ARI's internal files or somewhere in the house. So, he sat at the chair in front of the once-bloody desk in Jayden's bedroom and tried out ARI first. He took a deep breath, being surrounded by Mars.

"I don't know if he'll be mad that I'm doing this, and I'll apologize to him later, but I _really_ have to know. I have to find this out myself." He pulled out the familiar holographic filing cabinet drawer and searched through the "A" files again. Yep, one of them still corrupted, two others missing. Just like last time. However…

"What the heck?"

Shaun noticed there was a new "A" file, A426-G. Without wasting any time thinking about how this could be, he immediately grabbed it and threw it into the air. It hovered over his head and he tapped the center of the file with his gloved palm, giddy with anticipation. The subtitle for the folder was:

"Case Results".

Shaun quickly read the contents of the folder, not knowing ahead of time what he was getting himself into.

"Victims: Evelyn Ramos, 23- Hospitalized, then transferred to psych ward for evaluation

Agent Norman Jayden, 25- Hospitalized for minor injuries

Reynald Ramos, 6- Deceased"

The date for the most-recently updated version of this file was 9 years ago.

Shaun gaped, speechless. "Jayden was a victim in one of his own cases?"


End file.
